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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Molly joins the DSFA team!

Welcoming Molly to DSFA!

Hello! I’m Molly English, one of Darryll Schiff’s newest assistants! I recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and poetry, and as I begin my post-graduate career I couldn’t be more excited to work with such a talented and celebrated Chicago artist! I met Darryll by chance when Sara, my dear friend and now co-assistant, asked if I would participate in one of his projects. That day, I had the opportunity to visit his lovely studio on the Near West Side. Immediately upon engaging with Darryll’s work, I felt challenged in my perception of the photographic medium. I had once thought of photographers as static, observational, and temporally fleeting artists in comparison with painters and poets, yet Darryll’s work defied that expectation. What I saw in his studio were works of art that moved. They shook, twisted, breathed, and unfurled around me in their impressive size. I saw works that confidently transcended the fixed-moment paradigm of photography in order to honor the complexities of subjective experience. I saw an ongoing encounter with time alive inside Darryll Schiff’s photographs.

And the rest is history! I asked for an interview with Darryll, he obliged, and I eventually joined the team! Now, I work on what we’re calling “Big Ideas”. This means I’ll be coordinating some of the really exciting stuff that’ll be coming your way in the future! To say the least, I’m absolutely over the moon to be joining Lauren, Sara, and (soon to be introduced) Charlie in sharing this amazing artwork with the world.

I believe that my interest in subjective experience as a component of my own artistic discipline is what fueled the connection I first felt with Darryll’s work. For me, some of the most interesting, unexplored landscapes are those we perceive inside ourselves. It's my suspicion that everyone feels at least some internal idiosyncrasy and that nearly all of us who examine it struggle to identify it. Hunger, thirst, dizziness, and epiphany are some examples. Darryll’s work especially evokes the uncanny quality and scope of dreams that I aspire to capture in my own work.

And yet, these are the self-encounters we’ve managed to find language for, however inadequate that language may be. What interests me the most (and I'm delighted to find a sense of this is Darryll’s work as well) are the very deep-down sensations we can hardly catch, let alone explain. So it is With these questions in mind, that I create art.

My work has often been described as storm-like, or frenzied, and I believe that effect to be a product of my searching. I am constantly searching for a more accurate way to understand myself—for anyone to understand themselves—through creation. By creating, one begins to feel the grain of it, the true story, becoming clear in their body.

This sincere internal searching is what I think of when I look at Darryll’s subjects. Through the photograph, I see the world through eyes that are not my own. I’m allowed, for the duration of an inconstant moment, into the story of someone else’s body. Not only that, but I am reminded of the fact that we belong to a world of people just like us, and yet we are all vastly different. Everyone vibrating with their own stories inside.

It's no wonder Darryll Schiff has become one of Chicago's most prominent artists. His work is endlessly valuable for all types of viewers. With work in galleries across the world and some of the most prestigious museums, Darryll truly embodies what many of us young artists aspire to be. I feel extremely privileged, and quite frankly... absolutely jazzed to be a part of the team that makes this possible. I look forward to bringing you some awesome updates!